HAFEN CITY IN HAMBURG - SEA PORTAL,GERMANY'S "GATEWAY TO THE WORLD"

1. Historical check-up

The Port of Hamburg (Hamburger Hafen) is a port in Hamburg, Germany, on the river Elbe. The harbour is located 110 kilometres from the mouth of the Elbe.
It is named Germany's "Gateway to the World" and is the largest port in Germany. It is the third-largest port of Europe (after the port of Rotterdam and the port of Antwerp), in terms of numbers of containers handled in 2004, it is the second-largest in Europe and ninth-largest worldwide. 9.8 million containers were handled in Hamburg in 2007, a ten percent increase on 2006.
The harbour covers an area of 73.99 km² (64.80 km² usable), of which 43.31 km² (34.12 km²) are land areas. The location is naturally advantaged by a branching Elbe, creating an ideal place for a port complex with warehousing and transshipment facilities. The extensive free port also enables toll-free shipping.
History
The history of the port is almost as old as the history of Hamburg herself. Founded on May 7, 1189 by Frederick I for its strategic location, it has been Central Europe's main port for centuries and enabled Hamburg to develop early into a leading city of trade and a rich and proud bourgeoisie.
During the age of the Hanseatic League in the 13th to 17th century, Hamburg was considered second only to port and city of Lübeck, in terms of its position as a central trading node for sea-borne trade.
During the second half of the 19th century, Hamburg became Central Europe's main hub for transatlantic passenger and freight travel, and from 1871 onward, it was Germany's principal port of trade. The Hamburg America Line was at her time the largest shipping company in the world. The Free Port, established in on October 15, 1888 enabled traders to ship and store goods without going through customs and further enhanced Hamburg's position in sea trade with neighboring countries. The Moldauhafen has a similar arrangement only that it is related to the Czech Republic exclusively.
The Speicherstadt, one of Hamburg's architectural icons today, is a large wharf area of 350.000 m² floor area on the northern shore of the river built in the 1880s as part of the free port and to cope with the growing amounts of stored goods in the port.
Hamburg shipyards lost fleets twice after WWI and WWII and after the division of Germany between 1945 to 1990, the Port of Hamburg lost most of its hinterland and consequently many of its trading connections. However, since German reunification, the fall of the Iron curtain and European enlargement, Hamburg is substantially making ground as one of Europe's prime logistic centers and as one of the world's busiest and largest sea ports.
 

1997: Announcement of the HafenCity project
2000: Adoption of the Masterplan by Senate
From 2000: Start of infrastructure measures; clearing of the area and relocation of businesses
From 2003: Intensive construction of buildings begins (Am Sandtorkai/Dalmannkai)
2007: Start of construction in the central Überseequartier area
2007: Start of construction of the U4 subway line
2009: Completion of the first neighborhood, Am Sandtorkai/ Dalmannkai
2010: approx. 1,500 residents and 6,000 jobs

3. Scope and basic activities The idea of a new inner-city district was conceived soon after the fall of the Wall and the Iron Curtain. Before publication of the blueprint for HafenCity, the Masterplan, in 2000, important fundamentals had already been put in place in the 1990s
The periphery of the port - shown here before construction of the Hanseatic Trade Center - was an unused port area for decades and was separated from the city by a customs fence until 2003 (© Source: HafenCity Hamburg GmbH) Start slideshow
On February 29, 2000, Hamburg’s Senate made history by giving its approval to the Masterplan for the new inner-city district of HafenCity. It was on this date at the latest that, after almost ten years of preparation, a decisive, metaphorical "foundation stone" for its realization was laid.
The chance to transform the edges of the port around the city center was partially perceived back in the 1990s. Hamburg’s role in Europe improved dramatically with the fall of the Wall and the Iron Curtain: from being a city on the easternmost edge of the Western World, it has become the metropolitan heart of a continent growing together again, and a place with enormous potential. This opened up the way for Hamburg to become a crucial hub in Central Europe. Connections with Northern Europe were also being upgraded and the whole Baltic Sea area grew enormously in significance. This process gave Hamburg huge potential for development - but it had to be exploited quickly, to prevent other competing regions from overtaking.
It was 1991 when the city’s former first mayor, Henning Voscherau, unofficially commissioned a study to look into the transformation of the inner-city port fringes. Port capacity had been built up south of the River Elbe, which had left centrally sited areas on the north banks of the river either idle or under-used, since they were unsuitable for container operations. To begin with, just a handful of people were in on the project: if Voscherau’s plans had become known too early, there would have been resistance in the port industry as well as resistance to the acquisition of buildings or companies - which would have raised the stakes in terms of cost.
Under this cloak of discretion, then, the city was able to take control of crucial parts of the area, since although the majority of the land belonged to Hamburg, the buildings on it mostly belonged to private businesses. Buildings and companies were acquired through the then 100% Hamburg-owned Hamburger Hafen und Lagerhausgesellschaft mbH (now HHLA Hafen und Logistik AG) and its 100% city-owned subsidiary, founded in 1995, GHS Gesellschaft für Hafen- und Standortentwicklung (since 2004, HafenCity Hamburg GmbH). HHLA’s former chairman, Peter Dietrich, played a key role.
The first study on the urban regeneration of the port peripheries, then still confidential, was commissioned from the well-known Hamburg architect, Professor Volkwin Marg. The study he presented in December 1996 laid out many of the development principles that are now taking effect in the new part of town - for example the urban structure and the principle of mixed uses.
Then, on  May 7, 1997, Henning Voscherau finally presented "Vision HafenCity", as it stood then, to the public. In a speech in Hamburg’s Übersee Club, he made the case for the inner city to regain its waterfront; at that time this only applied to a few sections (primarily the River Elbe embankment in Altona, between Fischmarkt and Museumshafen), a process initiated by the then City Planning Director, Professor Egbert Kossak. Yet at that stage, it only affected comparatively narrow sections right on the riverfront. Now, however, an area of around 157 hectares was to be developed into an upmarket inner-city district with mixed residential, work, cultural and leisure uses.
Particular political legitimation for the removal of the HafenCity area from the Port of Hamburg was provided by the simultaneous establishment of a special fund under public law to hold "city and port" assets, public land in the ownership of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The burden of financing the new, state-of-the-art container terminal at Altenwerder was also transferred to this special fund; the original intention was that this should also be financed out of the proceeds of sales of land. Thus, the HafenCity development and the special fund under public law were to finance not only the inner-city HafenCity project and its accompanying infrastructure, but also the modern port facility at Altenwerder, for which no funds were set aside in the city budget. This also provided the political legitimation for removing the HafenCity area from the confines of port territory, without coming into conflict with the port industry.